RB532 Locks up on boot with APC UPS Attached

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

Hi,
I’ve seen a few posts that seem to be related to the same bug I’m trying to get around. It’s getting cold up her in Northern Maine, and today I replaced a PC with a IDE flash module running Mikrotik with an RB532/A with 6-port daughtercard.

When I boot the unit with an APC SmartUPS 1500VA attached to COM1, the RB532/A refuses to boot. When I disconnect the serial cable and power-cycle the board, it boots fine. Then I attach the serial cable, and the RB532/A starts talking to the battery with no issues.

I couldn’t leave the battery attached to the RB532/A, because after a power outage I would have to travel to the tower site to disconnect the serial connection. This leaves me with no remote battery monitoring.

Under system/console, I have deleted the console interface. Under ports, COM1 is shown in use by “UPS”. When connected, system/UPS shows data from the battery.

I suspect what is happening is that on boot, the RB532/A is receiving data from the battery through the serial port and doesn’t know what to do with it, so it locks up.

Does anyone else out there have the same problem? Is there a fix or a workaround? It almost seems like this needs to be solved in the RB532 hardware.

Thanks,
Eric

2

What version of MT are you using?

3

2.9.29 with the matching 2.9.29 UPS package.

Thanks,
Eric

4

Ummm… send support.rif to support@mikrotik.com


Best Regards

5

My buddy said that the upgrade from .27 to .28 left his UPS unusable, it would keep rebooting RouterOS every time it started… I asked him to send supouts for it - apc 1200 i think.

Sam

6

Thanks for the info. Can anybody else confirm this problem?

As much as I like Mikrotik products, I’m getting really frustrated with the features that don’t work!

7

I can confirm that this problem exists. I have an RB532 that locked up with a UPS attached a couple of weeks ago. When the 532 boots the UPS beeps randomly which would indicate to me that the initial boot messages are confusing the system. In fact it took more than a simple reboot to recover the 532 - I ended up pressing the reset button several times.

I guess that the UPS is sending out data as well - confusing the 532 even further.

Malcolm

8

What version are you on?

Thanks for the reply.

Eric

9

Try following:
/system routerboard settings set enter-setup-on=delete-key

The same setting can be changed from RouterBOOT itself as well.

10

I believe regular x86 pcs have problems with the ups package as well… I will see if I can get my buddy to upgrade back to .28 and poke around with it, problem was that he couldn’t take a supout because it kept rebooting the instant it came back up.